by Rachel Aaron
“Hold position!” she ordered, shifting her fingers nervously on her shield grip. “Remember the plan. Let them come to us.”
The words were still leaving her mouth when she heard the wha-chunck of catapults. Ghastly screaming filled the air as two huge balls of ghostfire flew over their heads to smash into the fortress behind them. Massive conflagrations of blue-white flame shot up when they landed, the flames rising so high, Tina could see the tops of them over the fortress’s sixty-foot walls. The air was filling with the screams of the Order soldiers when another round of wha-chuncks echoed through the air.
These sounded even closer, and Tina flung her shield over her head to brace for impact. But the new shots didn’t fly over the walls. Instead, they crashed into the gatehouse directly in front of them.
The heavy oak-and-iron doors had no chance against the undead’s magical ordinance. Tina barely had time to get her shield in front of her again before the Order’s forty-foot-tall front gate exploded inward, shooting spear-sized splinters of wood into the raid at lethal speeds. One bounced right off her shield, pushing her back several feet as she hunkered in the shadow of her god-forged steel.
The rest of the raid wasn’t so lucky. Cries of pain sounded behind her as the debris hit the back wall. Glancing quickly over her shoulder, Tina saw that KatanaFatale had a two-foot-long javelin of wood going straight through his recently healed leg. The Sorcerer wasn’t alone in getting skewered, either. Two other casters were also down with shrapnel, moaning in pain as they began to bleed out.
“Anders!” she bellowed. “Healing approved!”
The Cleric raised his staff, and Tina felt the cold air grow warm as golden healing magic began to rain down on the back lines. Satisfied they hadn’t just been taken out before the fight began, Tina turned back around to face the blasted-out gates…
And saw the enemy properly for the first time.
She froze, shield almost slipping from her limp hand. Down the hill, the entire pass through the mountains was choked with undead. This wasn’t a bunch of monsters glimpsed through a forest in the dead of night or a dusty cloud seen from five miles away. This was an army. A massive, sophisticated, orderly military force with clearly demarked units. There were skeleton infantry and archers, zombie shock troops clad in crude plate armor, hulking monstrosities crafted from sewn-together corpses, and large undead animals filled with ghostfire, and that was just what was out in front. There were more troops behind those, a great, dark mass that filled the wide pass of the Deadlands for as far as she could see, and at their center, towering a good eighty feet above the rest, was Grel’Darm the Colossal.
Tina swallowed against the sudden tightness in her throat. She remembered SB telling her once that Grel was the animated remains of a giant from FFO’s ancient past. Seeing him now, Tina believed it. He looked even bigger out here in the open than he had in his boss room, his eyes burning white like ghostly funeral pyres as he stared through the hazy dust of his army at the fortress’s broken gates.
Straight at her.
“Roxxy,” Frank whispered, his armor rattling, “do you see—”
He never got to finish, because that was the moment when the undead army started to charge. The line was so long, Tina couldn’t begin to count them, but she felt them coming like a tide through the ground, the pounding of their distant feet making the whole fortress vibrate.
“Ranged to the center!” she shouted, bolting out of the way to join the rest of the melee against the walls.
As she and Frank ran out, the Rangers and other casters ran in, aiming their staffs and bows at the now-clear doorway. Watching them move, Tina was really, really glad that they’d practiced fighting as a group. Running out of mana and ammo had sucked on the road, but at least now she was reasonably sure they could fight together without killing each other. At least, she was until an arrow sailed out of the Ranger group, making her worry she’d spoken too soon.
“Hold, dammit!” she yelled as the arrow stuck, quivering, in one of the wooden splinters that was still hanging off the sundered doors. “Wait for my order!”
Outside, the undead army had almost made it up the hill to the fortress. Risking a peek, Tina saw that they were all zombie shock troops—fast-moving and deadly but not particularly tough. They were still too far away for the raid’s fire to be effective, though, so she kept her hand up, holding her people back to prevent wasteful attacks. But while she watched the zombies race in, her real attention was on Grel’Darm.
These minor undead were just annoyances. Their real target was the building-sized armored skeleton boss behind them. For some reason, though, Grel hadn’t joined in the charge. He was still calmly standing in the middle of his army, watching the fortress with those flaming eyes as if he was waiting for something.
With a horrible screech of bone on bone, the shock zombies made it to the top of the hill and started pouring through the blasted-out gates. Thankfully, while the catapults had taken out most of the double doors, there was still enough charred metal and smoking wood left at the bottom to force the human-sized zombies to climb. Grinning, Tina waited until the first wave hit the ground inside before dropping her hand.
“Now!” she cried, pressing her body flat against the wall. “Fire!”
“Fire Storm!”
“Acid Arrow!”
“Chain Lightning!”
The ability calls echoed off the stone walls as glowing arrows and elemental destruction landed on the zombies who’d made it through the gate. There was a series of explosions, whirlwinds of fire, and blinding lightning as the masses of undead were turned to ash, dissolved, and blown apart. Only a single half-burnt corpse made it far enough inside for Tina to hit it, and it crumbled to ash before her sword could pass all the way through.
A round of cheers rose from the raid only to fall silent as more undead began to scramble over the broken doors.
“Fire at will!” Tina yelled, pressing herself against the wall again as a steady stream of spells and arrows began flying past.
And so it went. There was no sun to be seen in the Deadlands, so Tina wasn’t sure how long they fought, but it felt like forever. Channeled into such a narrow space, the undead could never mass enough numbers to overcome the damage the Roughneck’s casters and archers could put out. Even the massive undead battle boars were turned to ash by the time they climbed through the broken doors. With full mana and a whole cartful of arrows for the Rangers, the space between the gates was a glorious corridor of endless zombie destruction, but Tina couldn’t enjoy it. Her eyes were still on Grel’Darm, who had yet to budge from his safe position at the back of the endless army.
“Why isn’t he moving?” she hissed.
“Maybe he likes it back there,” Killbox said beside her, glowering at the never-ending stream of arrows and spells flying through the boxed-in courtyard. “I’m more interested in when we get to fight. I haven’t gotten to chop a single zombie!”
“You’ll get your chance,” Tina promised, leaning out to try to get a better look at what was coming next. “He has to move some—”
A ghostly horn cut her off. The mournful cry was answered by several others blowing from all directions, then Tina heard the scrabble of bones as a new wave of undead crashed into the main fortress walls.
“Crap!” she cried, leaning out so far she nearly lost her head to a fireball. “They must have piled up on the rest of the fortress once they realized they couldn’t get in here!”
She’d barely finished when the gongs on the Orders’ battlements began sounding behind them, and Tina heard Commander Garrond shout the attack. When she looked up to see where, though, the commander jumped off the tower he’d been watching from, falling eighty feet to the courtyard below. She was wondering if he’d just jumped to his death when Garrond suddenly leaped up to join the soldiers on the fortress’s southern battlements where the undead had wheeled in a siege tower. Another leap took him right off the edge into the undead army, then there was
a flash of golden light as the commander sliced the iron siege tower in half.
“Damn,” Tina said, eyes wide. “That’s a four-skull for you. Glad we didn’t try to fight him.”
“Too bad there’s not more of him,” Killbox said, nodding at the wall opposite the one Command Garrond had just one-man-armied off. Sure enough, the soldiers up there were already going down to the undead’s arrows. They kicked the siege ladders off the moment they landed, but with so many attackers, it was only a matter of time before the defense folded.
It was a truly bad position. The Roughnecks were holding the front gate, but with so many attackers, the undead army didn’t need to go in through the doors. They could just go around the gooseneck, taking the fight straight to the fortress itself.
But as screwed as they’d all be if the fort went down behind them, the walls were not Tina’s problem. Her job was to kill Grel, and she couldn’t do that if he stayed in the back. As proud as she was of the hellish damage her raid was unleashing on the undead coming through the gate, they weren’t here to kill crap zombies, and she didn’t want them running on fumes by the time the main show finally decided to grace them with his presence. Something had to be done, so she turned and yelled for the person who could do it.
“Zen!”
The name was barely out of her mouth when the dark-skinned elf practically materialized next to her. “I’m here,” she said, panting. “What’s up?”
Tina scowled but saved the lecture. Zen knew the risks of abusing her speed better than anyone except SB himself, and frankly they needed a little fastness right now.
“Take the Rangers and get to the towers,” she ordered, pointing at the two forward archer towers bracketing the gatehouse in front of them. “The undead are all over the walls, so you’ll have to climb, but that shouldn’t be a problem since you’re all freakishly agile. Get up as high as you can and see if you can hit Grel’Darm. It doesn’t have to be for good damage. We just need to get his attention. Once he’s in range, I’ll peel him off you.”
“We can try,” Zen said, glancing nervously through the broken door at Grel, who was still standing at the back of his army. “But we don’t have taunts like you do, Roxxy. What if he doesn’t take the bait?”
“That’s why all the Rangers are going,” Tina said with a smile. “If he won’t move, go full bore on him until he does. Who knows? Maybe he’s stupid enough to stand there and let you guys kill him for free.” She didn’t think that it’d be that easy, but putting the enemy in a damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don’t situation was always a good move. “Just make sure you get back down here ASAP the moment he gets mad,” she added, tapping her finger on the wall next to them. “Once the plan kicks into action, those towers aren’t going to be safe.”
“We’re on it,” Zen said, then put her fingers in her mouth to blow a high-pitched whistle.
The raid’s five other Rangers whistled back, then all of them darted away so fast, Tina’s eyes couldn’t follow. The next time she saw them, they were climbing the weighted chains that used to open and close the fort’s massive front gates, scrambling up the tire-sized iron links as nimbly as squirrels to the towers above. Whistling at their incredible speed, Tina felt foolish for not using them earlier. SilentBlayde had been right. She just needed to embrace the awesome they all had.
Now that she’d sent all eight Rangers on a mission, the raid’s ranged damage output had been reduced by half, which meant tougher zombies were starting to get through the gates. She was hefting her shield to go and pick them up when Killbox and the other Berserkers bowled her over, crushing the corpse monsters beneath their massive axes while fireballs rushed by over their heads.
“Good work,” Tina said, pushing herself back up as the melee finished off the undead. “Now get back in position. We don’t know when—”
She cut off with a jump as something elf-like flashed by her.
“He’scomingRoxxy!” said the blur that was Zen. “Holycrap. HeisFAST!”
She and the other Rangers were going so fast, they almost crashed into the door at the back. They skidded to a halt just in time, all of them gasping for air as they sank to the ground. Tina smashed a half-dead zombie out of her way and got back in position at the center of the box, yelling at Frank to get beside her as she turned to face the broken gates.
And nearly dropped her shield.
Grel’Darm the Colossal was coming up the hill at them like a crashing plane. As she watched him charge forward, all Tina could think was how foolish she’d been. Grel had never been the slow one. He’d been held up by the catapults and the army he was escorting. That was how he’d caught them with their pants down on the hill. He’d just run up it before they could hear him coming.
But there was no time to stew on past mistakes. Grel’Darm was almost to the gate. The giant skeleton was as tall as the front towers, a good twenty feet too tall to go through the broken door of the front gatehouse. Tina was wondering how he planned to get inside when then the giant turned and shoved his armored shoulder forward, charging like a linebacker as he picked up even more speed.
“Holy shit,” Tina said, taking a step back. “He’s gonna ram the gatehouse!” she yelled, throwing up her shield as she scrambled backward. “Everyone collapse!”
The whole raid fell back into a knot around the spell casters. When they were all properly bunched together, Tina gave the command.
“Anders! Sanctuary!”
The fish-man Cleric was already in position at the center of the clump. He gave her a quick smile and spread his scaly arms wide, his golden staff blazing. “Sanctuary of the Four!” he shouted as the air filled with warm sun-colored magic. It was still building when the fish-man’s smile turned into a grin. “You shall not pass!”
He slammed his staff down dramatically, and a spinning golden circle filled with sacred geometric patterns appeared on the ground below their feet. At the same time, a dome of golden light dawned above their heads, creating a transparent but impenetrable barrier of holy magic just in time to bounce the wave of broken stone and shattered iron that crashed over them as Grel’s shoulder collided with the fortress’s heavy stone gatekeep.
The fortification didn’t even slow him down. Car-sized chunks of masonry bounced off the golden barrier as Grel’Darm blew right through the reinforced archway above the destroyed gates. An entire half staircase slammed into the ground in front of them, tearing through the stone tiles like a plow before crashing into the barrier and exploding inches from Tina’s face.
If the golden wall hadn’t been there, they all would have been flattened. But the Cleric’s barrier only lasted for five seconds. As the golden magic faded, Tina gulped in fear.
This was her moment, but suddenly, her feet didn’t want to move. She was supposed to pick up Grel and keep him busy while everyone else got into position, but now that the eighty-foot-tall giant was towering over her, all she could think about was how he’d flattened her last time. Of course, she’d been unprepared back then, but that didn’t help the knot of fear in her throat as Grel’Darm’s dented steel boot filled her vision.
“Tina!”
SilentBlayde’s shout rang in her ears, making her jump. They were all still bunched up for the barrier spell. It Grel’s foot landed in the raid now, he’d hit everyone, and that would be the end. The sheer stupidity of that was enough to beat back her fear, and Tina launched forward with a roar.
“Team Hulk, go!” she yelled as she ran back to her position at the center of the box between the gates. “Ranged, get to the back! Frank, with me!”
The Knights and Berserkers bolted to their positions on the walls to Tina’s right and left. The Rangers and Sorcerers ran, too, re-forming their back line in front of the fortress’s inner door as they resumed fire on the gates, shooting arrows and fireballs over Tina’s head to disintegrate the undead that were still pouring in through the now-smashed gatehouse behind the boss. Everyone seemed to be doing exactly what they were suppos
ed to, but Tina didn’t have time to check, because in the heartbeat it had taken to shout the orders, she’d finally reached Grel’Darm.
Or maybe he reached her. It was impossible to say who got there first as the giant’s massive boot landed in front of her, filling her vision and cratering the ground. Tina dug her own boots into the cracking stone and stomped back, clipping Grel’Darm’s foot with the glowing power of her area taunt. She was about to stomp again to make sure she’d gotten his attention when Grel’Darm’s boot vanished.
Tina’s eyes grew wide as her head snapped up, neck creaking backward at an almost ninety-degree angle to watch as Grel’Darm launched himself into the air. He leaped so high that, for a heart-stopping moment, Tina was terrified her taunt hadn’t worked. That he was jumping over her to land on the casters. But as the giant’s leap reached its peak, his ghost-fire eyes swiveled in his skull to look straight down at her, then he began to howl, filling the battlefield with his bone-chilling, discordant wail as he swung his charter-bus-sized club over his head.
“Shit, shit, shit!” Tina said, ducking behind her shield. Howling Strike already? She’d thought she’d get at least a few normal hits before he pulled out the big guns. Using her cooldowns this early in a fight was never a good move, but the bus-sized club was falling like a meteor straight toward her head, so Tina sucked it up and activated her big defensive abilities. All of them.
“Earthen Fortitude! Iron Wall! Steady Ground!”
She yelled each ability at the top of her lungs so Frank and the healers would know she’d just blown her full stack. Shield over her head, Tina hunkered down and braced on her sword as her skin hardened her into place and the broken pavement beneath her feet turned into a pillar of bedrock going straight down to the world’s roots, locking her in place as the full force of Grel’Darm landed on top of her.
